OFFSTAGE: Carrie Underwood Loved Her Bible Belt

(CMT Offstage keeps a 24/7 watch on everything that’s happening with country music artists behind the scenes and out of the spotlight.)

Small towns and small churches. That’s what Carrie Underwood says she loved about growing up in the Bible Belt, during the interview from last week’s VH1 Unplugged: Carrie Underwood
. “It was really great growing up in the Bible Belt because we had so many small churches. I love small churches because you are a community,” she said, adding she’d always go to her church on Wednesday nights for her youth group. “It wasn’t weird that everybody went to church. It was not strange that Wednesday night was youth group night. It wasn’t strange that every Tuesday morning, we would all get together on the steps and have a morning devotional before school. It was so normal, and even if you didn’t participate, you didn’t pick on the kids that did, because … that’s just the way it is.” And when Underwood wasn’t at church? She was still a good girl. “I never snuck out. I never went to a party where parents weren’t at home. I never broke curfew. When we graduated, we got together and drank non-alcoholic champagne,” she said. “It might sound boring, but it was so much fun.”